Aftershocks
by captainodonewithyou
Summary: Skye/Lincoln. After the battle with the Inhumans, things are in disarray. Lincoln is cleaning up the Afterlife while the team tries to heal the wounds that losing a team member has created. Meanwhile, Coulson assigns Skye a new mission-one she can see helping her lost friend-and Lincoln agrees to do what he can to help. And what is Ward up to? (by bri)
1. Chapter 1

Pre-word of warning: this is my first significant piece of AOS writing and I don't have any practice with the characters. I do however consider myself to know them well enough to at least do them justice and would not publish this otherwise. On the first AOS fic I posted people were remarkable assholes and I didn't feel dealing with it so I took it down and i really would prefer for that not to happen again. Constructive criticism would be lovely but please take rudeness elsewhere, as I won't give it the time of day anymore.

Thanks so much for reading!

xxx

"So did you finish that last semester of med school?"

They are in one of the many shambled alleys of the Afterlife together, picking up the pieces broken beyond repair and shoddily piecing back together what is not destroyed.

"How did you know about med school?"

She glances up at him, meeting his eyes somewhere in the middle and raising a brow.

"It was like, one of the first things you told me. Barring that awful popcorn analogy."

He groans but she sees the smile he fights back from the corners of his lips.

"Okay, rephrase: How did you _remember_ about med school?"

It's her turn to fight back a smile as she glances back at the piles of concrete in front of her that still need moving.

"You gave me a lot of information that day, okay? I wasn't sure what was going to be important so I just tried to remember everything."

Uneasy is a gross understatement to describe the reactions of the other Inhumans when she returned, Lincoln at her side or not. The dark looks have become more and more sparse over her extended visits working to fix the reparable damage she can but still, she and Lincoln have developed an attachment to their quiet projects separate from the others. She likes the escape from their stares of disgust. He needs the interlude from having all eyes turned to him for the next move.

"It's not important."

A grin tugs halfheartedly at the corner of her lips as she stares down at the slab of concrete twice her size that is her next target, off-tone of his voice nagging deep inside of her.

"Um, of course it's important. I need to know if I get to call you Doctor Lincoln yet."

She doesn't give him a chance to answer to see whether her attempt at garnering a laugh or even a smile has worked. Instead she tunes all her attention to the molecules buzzing around her and stations her focus on the tense vibrations of the slab—squeezing her eyes shut as she urges them to speed up. The concrete creaks out an angry cry against her intrusion, and shatters with a now familiar resounding crack only moments later.

Her now quiet mind allows her to hear that Lincoln's precious tools ("Something tells me handing you power tools would be tantamount to handing you my life, Skye.") have gone silent as well.

Her eyes seek him out, an unbidden reaction to the concern that blooms in the pit of her stomach (a feeling becoming far too common when it concerns _him_.)

She knows he doesn't know she is looking because his bright eyes have fallen in the way they only do when he thinks he has the moment to himself. When he thinks he doesn't have an entire world relying on his next move.

"You didn't finish."

It is probably the wrong thing to say but she can't stop the words before they slip from her mouth. When he looks up at her, he doesn't bother to put the mask back on.

"There were more important things."

"You could go back now."

"You know I can't."

"You can do whatever you want to."

"Not anymore."

"What is more important than your future, Lincoln?"

"This." He motions widely around him alongside the words but his eyes don't follow the movements—they are still trained heavy on her.

Sweat has beaded on her brow beneath the sun and is creeping annoyingly towards her ear before she rubs angrily at it, turning away from her concrete slabs and taking a full step towards Lincoln.

"You don't owe these people just because you think they're fragile. They obviously are stronger than they seem, surviving my mom as long as they did. They could handle it if you finished a few classes."

He breathes in slowly as she moves again nearer to him, feeling something protective and fierce burn in her chest.

"You can't just forget yourself in favor of the world. I can tell it's important to you."

He lets out a short, dry laugh—eyes flashing to the ground then back at her.

"Medical school isn't my path anymore, Skye. Just… let it go."

His tone is not unkind but she senses the finality in it and even if she could explode, she respects it.

Respects him.

xxx

"So are you going to tell me why you're not sleeping?"

She is kidding herself to think that pretending the dark circles blooming beneath both eyes don't exist will actually make them disappear to the people around her. She doesn't look at him, flipping another page in the temporary treaty Coulson has given her and Lincoln drafts of to revise. It is important, and practically as thick as her face, and she wonders how a promise that the Afterlife and SHIELD will not try to kill each other anymore can _possibly_ take up so many goddamn pages.

"Been doing a lot of late night reading," she answers, plastering a thin smile on her lips and nodding at the pages she's stooped over.

The work has been endless since the battle and she's not sure if she prefers the boring jobs in the air conditioned bunker or the hands on fixes beneath the hot Afterlife sun.

She can feel his eyes still on her minutes after her words have dissipated into the cool air around them.

"My question still stands, Skye. Why aren't you sleeping?" He uses that tone that she hates, the one that is firm but soaked in ill-hidden concern that she does not care to be on the receiving end of.

She turns a page more aggressively than entirely necessary and its tearing stirs the silence.

"Does it matter?"

She is turning another page that she hasn't even read to fill the silence when his warm hand covers hers, flattening it cautiously to the papers. She can sense his molecules, even when she doesn't mean to. They are always in a constant swirling motion, faster than any normal human. When she'd first mentioned it to him he'd teased her with a waggle of his eyebrows before theorizing it had to do with his gift.

("I know it's because of your electricity, Sparky. I just thought you might like to know that you could probably dissipate at any given moment."

"Thanks for that comforting revelation."

"Anytime.")

"Of course it matters."

She doesn't mean to focus on the spinning of his molecules as hard as she does, but she need to focus on something and moments later she pulls back her shocked hand with a start.

 _"Ow!"_

She is startled enough that she doesn't think before glaring up at him.

"If you were better rested you would've probably managed not to shock yourself," he tells her dryly, but his eyes don't reflect the carefully measured tone, studying her own expression delicately. "You can trust me, Skye. I know that is hard for you to hear right now. But I'm your transitioner. And… your friend, I hope. In both cases, your wellbeing matters to me."

His words prod at her and for a moment she considers telling him. Considers confiding in _someone_ the terrors that stir her awake in the darkness, gasping for life and rubbing frantically away at the memory of her mother's icy fingers on her cheeks.

She considers how much deeper that concern will settle into him.

"There's nothing for you to worry about."

"I know that isn't true."

He doesn't press her further.

xxx

He is on the phone. She can't hear his words but she can hear the strain in his voice as he repeats the same pleading lines again and again. She catches snippets here and there. Semester. Class. Emergency. It's enough for her to know exactly what the call is about.

There is one more pleading note before he goes silent, and she allows herself to glance over at him from her spot on the couch beside Fitz. It's not often there are quiet moments in the bunker, not anymore. Beers on the torn remains of the furniture she'd destroyed in her first outburst practically qualify as vacation time.

"Everything alright?"

She knows it isn't but it is what you're supposed to ask anyway.

He doesn't look at her, which is becoming a fallback.

"Fine. I'm gonna go get some air. Don't know how you lot stand living underground."

A curt laugh.

"You live in a place that doesn't exist," Fitz responds in his now usual detached logical tone, eyes still trained on the television. It's good that he's here—progress, that she's dragged him from the lab for more than five seconds straight—but she knows his heart isn't in it. It never is anymore.

So when Lincoln walks out, she surprises herself when she slowly raises to follow him.

"I'm gonna make some popcorn," she lies.

"You're going to go after him," he answers in a beat, and suddenly his eyes are on her. He doesn't look mad that she's tried to fool him. "You should."

She smiles softly at him.

"Don't go back to the lab for a bit, okay? Please? I'll be back."

"Yeah. Alright."

She finds Lincoln in the hangar, the closest thing to outside without going through Coulson to get there. He is sat on the ground, leaning back against a larger-than-life wheel of a carrier and staring mutely at the cracked grey wall in front of him.

She crosses the garage quietly but certainly not silently to lower herself beside him, but he does not flinch.

"That was your university, wasn't it."

She phrases it like a question but refrains from taking an unsure tone. She is certain. He doesn't shift his gaze from the wall, and she sighs, pulling her legs to her chest.

"Just because you won't talk about it doesn't mean I am not an extremely skilled eavesdropper," she confides in a faux whisper, and it makes her heart ache when a smile doesn't even inch at his lips. "In fact, your silence only improves my bat-like hearing."

He continues to ignore her, and she withholds another sigh, nudging gently at him with her arm and carefully guiding her attentions away from how his molecules spark at the touch.

"You can trust me."

The molecules she is meant to not be noticing buzz faster, and then, finally, he speaks.

"Like you trust me, right Skye?"

The words are meant to sting and they do—in the aching stab of her heart, in the prickle in her throat and in the sudden press of heat in her eyes.

"Lincoln, I—"

She can barely choke the words out and almost doesn't want to. She can tell he regrets his tone immediately but when he opens his mouth to speak again, she's already rising back to her feet.

"I'm sorry Skye, that was—"

"It's fine," she takes a deep breath to battle the lump rising in her throat, "It's alright."

"No, I shouldn't have—"

She is at the door and she can't find it in herself to turn back around.

xxx

Days have passed and they've put the argument in the past, if not yet resolving it, when she falls asleep on the ratted couch watching late-night reruns of some cooking show. She wakes up with a pounding heart and a throat raw from yelling, kicking frantically at a figure that isn't there and scraping her nails across the places on her cheeks where her hands would be.

It takes a long moment of heavy breaths to settle the heart trying to escape her chest and as she breathes, she stares blindly into the darkness.

Someone has turned the television off.

Her heart starts its race all over again as she sits up straight at the realization, searching around for someone else in the room.

He's in the doorway and it takes a moment to make out the blanket draped in his arms. When he speaks, his voice is uncharacteristically small.

"You looked cold."

Her heart stutters but doesn't slow its pounding, and this time it is not as simple as blinking back the tears burning in her skull. She feels one drip free, burning warm down her cheek—and hopes it is too dark for him to see it.

"Um, yeah. Thanks."

He moves forward with a caution not suited to the pretend they've set into place, the one where she didn't just wake up screaming and crying and where he didn't walk in and see it.

"I guess you'll just go back to your bunk. Now that you're up. More comfortable than the couch."

"I… guess I will."

Neither of them move and she takes a slow breath in before reaching to quickly swipe the offending tear from her cheek, still hoping he hasn't seen it.

The tension in the air is nearly as palpable as the molecules she manipulates. He stares at her, and she stares back, heavy silence weighing on both of their shoulders.

"Do you want to sit with me?"

Now it is her voice's turn to be unnaturally tiny. But however quiet, the noise shatters the stillness that has settled and he seems to breathe again as he nods and moves to accept the offer. The moment he sits she feels static energy travel from where her fingers dig into the couch up through her arms and the rest of her, ending its trek in a soft lift of her hair.

She pretends she doesn't feel that either.

The silence settles again in this new position, and this time it is his turn to break it.

"You were right. It was my university, the other day. They aren't fans of what they call my 'unreliable tendencies'."

The words quiver and fall in the air between them and she fights down a sarcastic laugh.

"Unreliable tendencies, huh?" She mutters, glancing sideways at the guy who dropped everything in his life to give a whole species _someone to rely on, "_ Have they even met you?"

That coarse laugh she is becoming more and more used to.

"They aren't wrong. To be entirely reliable to someone you generally have to screw something else over."

She is quiet, and doesn't fail to notice his fingers fisting against the couch.

"They asked me not to come back."

"Oh my God, Lincoln, I'm so—"

"Don't apologize. I'm not sorry. I told you, there are more important things."

She can't help but notice all the places his muscles stand tense despite his assurances that it doesn't upset him.

"I just wanted… to let you know. Peace offering, or whatever. I don't like fighting with you, Skye."

She grins in spite of herself, finding the shine of his eyes through the darkness.

"Not many people do. Fitz says I'm 'startlingly intimidating'."

"Fitz is right," another brief silence, and she can just make out his eyes sweeping across her face, reading her features. "I prefer when we get along."

Maybe it is the darkness or maybe it is her startlingly intimidating angry demeanor—but she can't find the concern anywhere in the lines of his face.

"When I sleep I dream about my mom," She speaks bluntly, without warning, trying not to notice how his features change when she mentions Jiaying. "We don't usually go on ice cream dates."

She feels him shift nearer to her, and whether it is conscious or not, the steady warm buzz of his molecules is soothing on her nerves.

"Skye, I'm—"

"Don't apologize," she echoes, faint smile playing at her lips. She fidgets her fingers a bit along the couch till she finds his, settling them flat nearby. "You didn't make her the monster she was. In fact, you too were a victim."

Her light tone doesn't soften the heaviness sagging at his shoulders.

"It doesn't change the fact that I'm sorry about it. No one deserves to…"

 _Have their own mother try to murder them._

"…go through what you did."

"Kinda ironic, huh? The woman who gave me life, trying to take it away?"

Her soft tone isn't enough to keep it from beginning to break apart, and the way his jaw twitches informs her that he does not, in fact, find it ironic.

"It's probably an orphan thing, imagining your parents?" She continues through her crumbling voice, blindly thinking maybe she can talk it off, maybe if she keeps treading on the tears will retreat, "Trying to picture them in your head, you know? Make up what they might look like," she swallows hard because the lump is rising fast and hard now. "Whose looks you take after more. Whose nose and whose eyes and, I don't know, all that dumb shit normal people probably never even consider."

His fingers close hard over hers on the couch, tangling together, and a few warm freed tears are spilling down her cheeks.

"I liked to imagine they might come for me in the foster homes. Think about how it might feel to have my dad touch my shoulder reassuringly. Or my mom…" another shuddering breath as she wipes angrily at the escaped tears, "My mom cradling my cheeks, you know? Getting a good look at me."

She is so stuck in her clouded mind she can't even sense his buzzing molecules anymore.

"Now I can't close my eyes without feeling her cradling my cheeks, just the way I imagined. Only she's not trying to see me."

She doesn't have to describe the ache of her energy draining, rushing from parts of her so deep she didn't even know they existed to fill her mother instead, doesn't have to recall how her head spun and heart thudded slower and slower against her chest. And it's good because she isn't sure she can say another word without her body betraying her, crumbling in a way that would rival the fall of the Afterlife.

He doesn't respond to her and she isn't sure what he could say if he did—just squeezes her hand tighter in his.

Then;

"Sleep here. I'll sit in the chair and wake you if it looks like things are getting rough."

"You're suggesting you watch me sleep?" Her tone fails her remarkably, humor falling flat behind her stuffy nose and still cracking throat.

"It's my job to help you."

His gentle words are even less believable than hers.

"I'm… not really so tired anymore," she lies, yawn rising in the back of her throat on cue, "Maybe we could just stay up and watch television a little. If you want."

(She wakes up still on the couch, loudly buzzing molecules magnified against where her ear presses to his shoulder—her hair standing on end. He runs warm and the blanket has been shifted to solely her territory and she doesn't move a while, listening to how the quivering molecules contrast with the steady beat of his heart.

It's the first morning she's woken up rested and she thinks about Lincoln—his medical school, his transitioning, his leading—his dedication to everyone but himself.

She hopes he knows _he is helping_ ).


	2. Chapter 2

This wasn't going to be a series and then it became one. Thanks for all the lovely comments left behind, you are the kindest.

xxx

"Okay, but listen, can I have Wanda Maximoff?"

It is supposed to be a serious meeting and she's even brought along a paper and filled it with notes with the pen she's borrowed from a reluctant Coulson. ("I remembered paper, AC. See? Look at how adult I am. Plus really how can you give me my own personal team of actual humans except not trust me with a pen?") Her adult notes currently are made up of ' _must have wanda. no bargains. stay strong_ ' and quality-variant doodles of pigs, most of which she realizes only now as she studies her handiwork she has given paws instead of hooves. But she tried, and trying counts—especially with a bored wall socket sitting across from her testing for science how many times he can shock her before she attempts retaliation.

"No Skye, for the third—"

"Fifth," May corrects, not looking up from her own probably slightly better notes.

"Fifth," Coulson amends, "time—The Scarlet Witch has joined the Avengers initiative."

Skye scoffs, also for the fifth time.

"Are you implying she would pick Captain America over _me_?"

Another shock from Lincoln in the same exact goddamn spot just beneath her knee, and she shoots him her dirtiest look, to which he returns a practiced glance of pled innocence that she expects has gotten him far in life.

"I'm sure it wouldn't be personal," Coulson tells her, and she looks back at him in time to see him regarding her and Lincoln's interchange with a brow raised.

It is only the four of them and she and Lincoln had arrived horribly late as it was—an unfortunate result of falling asleep on a couch that is decidedly not in the same room as your alarm clock. She'd woken heaped beneath the blanket he'd brought her and leaned on his shoulder, feeling warm and rested for the first time in weeks which lasted for the approximately two moments she had before that missed-alarm-clock dread pitted in her stomach. They'd arrived at Coulson's office 15 minutes past time in the same clothes they'd worn the day before disheveled from sleep, and her hair standing staticked, perpetually on end.

The day was not off to a shining start.

"Okay, follow up question. When I do this recruiting thing how exactly is the recruiting part supposed to go?"

Keeping the conversation moving seems like the best way to keep it _off_ of what the morning looked like. She nonchalantly runs a hand through her tingly hair for what could plausibly be the hundredth time, wishing desperately she had a rubber-band to tie it into a much less conspicuous bun.

"I'm sure we can count on your shining people skills to carry you through," Coulson answers with entirely too much of that sarcastic confidence of his for her to _not_ blow it.

She can't help but smirk.

"Yer a wizard, Harry. Join me wizard squad."

May and Coulson's eyes travel nearly simultaneously to Lincoln, clearly with hopes that he was raised better than her.

"Mention you used the registry to find them. Don't try to be sneaky about it. Then introduce the team and their invite into the mix depending on their reaction." He looks away from her then, to Coulson possibly for a sign of approval–then immediately back to her with a concerned line across his forehead, "Remind me again how exactly you convinced me to do this with you?"

She thinks _'suck up'_ really hard in his general direction, wishing her superpower was actually telepathy. Outloud, she responds, "Beer."

("Hey, you're an inhuman."

They're organizing scattered files in the Afterlife, one of the only quiet jobs she's found there. He is stacking some charred pages with focused caution and her mind is, as usual, elsewhere. When her musing passes her lips, he throws her a mildly concerned glance over his shoulder.

"I'm thrilled you noticed."

She glares.

"Don't be a smartass, I'm making a proposition."

His attention is only halfway turned back to the project in front of him and he turns again, this time with an eyebrow raised.

He mutters, "This is going to end well,"

At the same moment she says, "How would you feel about joining SHIELD?"

Wide-eyed disbelief comes over his face as he blinks hard at her, as if contemplating whether or not she is actually being serious. She throws in a winning smile a beat too late that only succeeds in confirming just how serious she is.

He lets out a long, slow breath from his nose–reaching to rub at the bridge–and she can tell their work for the day is done.

"It wouldn't be like… SHIELD, SHIELD." She hurries to amend, "I–Coulson–he gave me my own team. For inhumans."

"To use us as tools."

"No!"

"Skye–"

"Lincoln." She crosses her arms angrily across her chest then, glaring hard at him and challenging him to continue. He holds his own, staring down her glare long enough that it nearly becomes uncomfortable–before he lets out a groan, ducking his head to scratch at the nape of his neck.

"I am not having this conversation until I have a beer in me."

Skye holds back a smile, but she knows her lips twitch.

"Think you can tell me no easier if you're drunk?"

"I think I can't tell you no regardless, so I might as well have a damn beer.")

She isn't sure he has quite forgiven her for dragging him onto the project yet–but they are making slow progress–and when a smile twitches at his lips with her response she thinks he might be getting there.

xxx

"Wait back a second, Skye," Coulson requests following their dismissal, as she moves to follow Lincoln and May out—and her heart sinks as she turns, slow as she can, to face him, planting a sheepish smile on her lips.

He squints a little at her expression and then shakes his head as if telling himself understanding her is a hopeless cause.

"Is being on this mission together going to be a problem?" He asks, and she can tell he is watching her reaction carefully.

"God, no," she answers too swiftly and takes a slow breath, "No. I know this morning looked, ha, _really_ bad…" His eyebrows raise in clear agreement, "But it wasn't…what you're thinking. We just kinda fell asleep on the couch."

"Is being together going to be a problem, Skye?" he repeats, softer this time, and she can't decide if he believes her pleas of innocence.

"No. It won't be."

"We don't know him. Not well, nothing but what you've told us after spending one week with him in a city built on lies. Sending you two alone on this mission—it isn't my first choice."

His voice is tense and Skye understands his concern, after what they've been through. She really does. But she can't help but go on the defense.

"Wait, you're actually telling me you don't _trust_ him?"

She thinks her words might come out a little sharper than she intends but she doesn't go back on them.

"Skye—"

"Don't ' _Skye_ ' me! He's been nothing but loyal since day one. Literally, day _one_. When you met him he got himself abducted by Hydra protecting _me_. He went against his own leader in the battle with _his_ people and we would not have won that battle if he hadn't. You can't tell me you don't trust him after all of that he has done!"

It is a rare occurrence, for her to raise her voice to Coulson—and she can tell in his submitting expression that he is well aware.

He finally lets out a long breath.

"I don't want him to disappoint you."

His pained expression says something different.

 _I don't want him to be Ward._

"That _isn't_ Lincoln."

"You should warn him I have an alien vaporizer bigger than you are. Just to be sure."

xxx

"What the _hell_?" She hisses as soon as the door closes behind her. Lincoln is against the opposite wall waiting and smirking gloatingly. "My knee is never going to be the same, asshole."

She passes him, continuing down the hall towards her bunk and one remarkably offended ignored alarm clock.

"And mine will be?" He comes up behind her, matching her stride as she tries and fails to hide her own proud smirk at the reminder that she did indeed start the war.

"You were definitely impressed that I could appropriate your powers, oh great holder of the shocky-grudge."

She turns down another long hallway—it is the extended way and they both know it, but if they go by the couch then they might be prompted to discuss the night, and that is definitely not what Skye needs.

"Yeah, it was impressive the first three shocks. I might even give you six because I am benevolent. But 27 later—not as amusing."

He shoots her a sideways glare that lacks any actual substance and she shakes her head, finally hearing her alarm sounding faintly in the distance. When she does, she stops abruptly, and Lincoln follows suit clumsily.

"Um, you probably should gear up and pack. We'll be gone a while."

 _You probably shouldn't be seen anywhere near my bunk._

He studies her quietly a moment in that way that makes her feel like he can read the lines in her face.

"Did you dream last night?"

As much as she wants to be upset he's asked, the emotion is nowhere to be found within her—not when so much concern is written into his expression.

"About this really awesome black nothingness," she answers with a dry laugh. He nods, but doesn't smile. "Really going above and beyond on your job description, honestly. I'm pretty sure there is some law about 24 hour workdays. You could probably sue me. I could go to jail."

She's babbling and finally he interrupts.

"I… hope I didn't make you uncomfortable. Or upset Director Coulson. I know what this morning looked like." He shifts uneasily from foot to foot, reaching to scratch the back of his neck sheepishly. "The last thing I ever want is to make things any crappier for you."

She watches his anxious movements and feels her brow crinkle as he speaks.

"Lincoln wait, stop," she interrupts, shaking her head and standing up a little straighter, "I asked you to stay with me last night. You just did that really annoying thing where you do exactly what I want. But um, yeah. In the future if you want to be on Coulson's good side it'd probably be best to avoid creating the illusion we… Do that thing where you do what I want and try to remind him I'm a great _friend_."

She finally earns half a smile.

"I live to serve."

"God. Obviously. It's so gross. Never stop."

"Do me a favor in return and don't be slow packing. I cannot in words tell you how much I do not want to have to wait for you alone with Coulson. I have had enough of your parents for five lifetimes."

xxx

Neither she nor Lincoln have a flight permit and the team is remarkably lacking in members as it is—so her shiny new project gets off to a far less than shiny start in one of the vans she remembers from probably her first or second mission, one entire half shoddily repaired with parts that clearly don't match the rest of the vehicle.

It isn't her van, and she misses her van with a passion—but it has kinda got a homey feel to it that she thinks she can get used to.

"Look at you, getting me my first big girl car," she says as she circles it, checking out all the patchwork pieces. She raises her pitch a bit then, taking on her best teenager voice, "All mine, really, truly?"

She reaches the driver's side where Lincoln hasn't moved from, leaning tensely against the door with his arms crossed over his chest. She wouldn't be entirely honest if she said she didn't think it might just crumble back to pieces behind his weight.

"Don't touch my new baby."

She steps forward and prods him (sulking) out of her way, completing her thorough examination and turning to face Coulson who is standing in a tense position similar to Lincoln's, good and mechanical arms twisted across his chest as he watches her careful study of the vehicle intently—and only her. Skye is almost certain he hasn't laid eyes on Lincoln once since taking them into the garage to introduce them to their new home.

If he wasn't a fan of Lincoln to start with, he certainly wasn't now. SHIELD has accepted him as their Liaison with just about as much enthusiasm as the Afterlife accepted her as theirs—difference being that at least she has Lincoln, who everyone at the least respects, to stand between her and the bitter stares. She has practically no rank in SHIELD and while logically she knows Coulson only dislikes him because he has concocted some illusion in which he is a threat to her… she still feels awful that she can't change it.

"I mean I'm pretty sure we have cars that are actually all one piece somewhere?" She smirks and waggles her eyebrows, "Lola, for example."

Coulson's face whitens a shade, or twelve.

"Lola isn't a practical cross-country vehicle."

"Lola resents that."

"She'll get over it."

She steps forward with a roll of her eyes, grabbing up the backpack she's shoved some clothes and other necessities into and moving towards the back to pry open a door and toss it unceremoniously in. It is roomy inside, not unlike her old van, and she has a sudden flashback of being pinned between Jemma and Fitz as the same vehicle rocked and rolled sideways into a ditch.

She remembers the feel of the terror pulsing through her veins as the van turned over, remembers feeling the goosebumps raised on Jemma's skin when she grabbed at her arm—and most of all remembers the _thrill_ the danger put into her heart.

Her fingers clench around the air where she's imagining Jemma's arm and she wonders if she could go back, if she'd do anything differently.

Her heart aches, and maybe she isn't Jemma's best friend but Jemma is _hers_ and maybe she is better at ducking behind the safe cover of her sarcasm and jokes—but the void she's left feels deeper every day.

She thinks maybe by the time she gets back, they'll have found a way to get to her—and she slams the back van door shut hard on the memories.

"I call driving," she announces, hoping the nostalgia hasn't stuck on her tone. She can't look at Coulson or Lincoln as she moves towards the driver's side, pulling open the door and shifting the registry file on the seat to the dashboard as she scoots in.

Maybe somewhere along the way, she and Lincoln will find some way—or someone—to get to her back.

As Lincoln moves to the trunk to throw his own pack in, Coulson approaches her and Skye inhales slowly, preparing herself for another lecture.

"You still have my pen."

The words startle her and she reaches a hand to her ear, finding the pen still tucked safely behind it. She makes a face as she untangles it from her hair, holding it back out to him.

"Sorry," she mutters, twisting it in her fingers as she waits for him to take it.

He shakes his head, faint smile ghosted across his lips–and makes no move to take the pen.

"Keep it. You never know when you'll feel the urge to draw pigs."

They are quiet as Lincoln gets in the car beside her, and she doesn't have to look at him to know he is staring out the window, away from Coulson.

"Be safe," he says as he steps back from the car, swinging Skye's door shut for her.

A pause.

"Both of you."


	3. Chapter 3

Sorry this chapter took so long! It was my birthday then it was my dad's birthday and my mind has been everywhere but here. I finally got some focus and was able to wrap of the last bit of this, though. Thank you for reading and I hope you continue to enjoy. Let me know what you think!

xxx

"You kind of disappeared from Cincinatti then, huh?"

They've been driving in silence for what probably constitutes far longer than appropriate but Skye can't determine if it is a necessarily _uncomfortable_ silence. His forehead is pressed to the window and sometimes when she hits a bump the bridge gets the brunt of it against the glass (she's watching the road, _really_ ), but his eyes follow the few parts of the desert worth following as they pass and he hardly seems to notice the silence that Skye only hears pounding louder and louder in her ears until she can't take it a moment longer.

He seems a little dazed when she speaks, peeling himself from the window and eyeing her sideways groggily. It is late, she determines with a swift glance at the four glowing numbers on the dash, and she considers a bit belatedly that he may have been drifting to sleep.

"Sorry," she amends hastily, realizing only when she has to squint to make out the lines in his face just how dark it has gotten.

They don't even have a destination, not yet—just a general compass direction and a prayer that they won't get lost. The desert the Playground is located in is immense and Skye isn't even certain of its exact location, as all signal from outside of it seems to be blocked.

"No, you're fine," Lincoln finally answers, voice heavy enough with the sleep she's interrupted to make her feel bad. "Cincinnati? I guess I did. Wouldn't be the first time."

She considers his words, thinking of the first time she met him—how he told her he went back and forth between schooling and working in the Afterlife whenever Gordon or her mother required it. Dropping everything is something he seems to be remarkably practiced in.

"Guess you really are unreliable," she teases, sneaking a glance at the still perpetually empty road before looking back at him. She thinks the prod might be a bit distasteful, a bit too soon—but if it bothers him, he doesn't let it show in his expression, still unchanged from the dreary-eyed look from before.

"No one will miss me," he promises, and this time manages a small, extremely unconvincing smile to follow it up.

She glances again at the road before re-locating his eyes, her own narrowed. The smile doesn't draw her attention from what he's said.

"Of course someone will miss you."

He blinks hard, yawning widely and rubbing at his eyes in an extended motion—and when they reopen she can see in their brightness he is far more alert.

"You're right. I'm just exaggerating," a pause, "You are going to kill me, both literally and figuratively, if you don't start watching the road."

She obeys his subtle request with a sigh, but she can't make the focus of her mind shift from the words that didn't sound like an exaggeration at all. She doesn't know why it concerns her in the way it does. But she has become remarkably practiced in telling when someone is not telling her the full truth, and even if she thinks he isn't necessarily keeping something from _her_ —she can tell he is keeping something to himself.

She decides to press against what she thinks better judgment might advise her not to, if only she had any better judgment than what she is equipped with.

"Do your parents know? About the whole human wall-socket thing?"

He doesn't answer, not at first, and she can't help but glance his way. He's looking back out the window, scratching uneasily behind his ear. Her heart stutters a bit in her chest at the quiet sadness she finds easy to place in his eyes.

"Lincoln?" She repeats, "Your parents? Wallsocket? Are they the power tower variety of you?"

"That isn't how terrigenesis works," he answers, shooting her a look that says he's very aware she already knows it. "Your mom had healing powers, you make earthquakes. There's no genetic connection other than the gene potential."

She smiles tight and sarcastic, looking snappily back out at the road.

"It's considerate that I can always count on you to correct me, even when you're ignoring me. It's a real comfort knowing I'll always be told when I'm wrong when in your presence."

"I didn't mean—"

"No, you should continue! It's really _incredibly_ intriguing, how you've managed to turn this around and make it about me." Her tone is flooded with her best icy sarcasm, and she steals a sideways glance to see his ears are going the shade of red she generally enjoys drawing out of him.

The color doesn't make her heart stutter like it normally does. Instead, something tugging guiltily in the pit of her stomach grows stronger.

"Skye, I didn't mean to—"

The regret written in the lines of his face and the shading at the tips of his ears is not enough to quell her sudden frustrated anger.

"I, personally, had thought we'd gotten past the childish keeping crap to ourselves, but I guess that only works where you tell me one thing and I tell you everything." She is not entirely certain why she's gone off so easily—maybe exhaustion, maybe annoyance—maybe an echo of Coulson's concerns still present in her ears. She lets out a long breath at the thought then snaps coolly under her breath before she can stop herself, "You mentors really are _all_ the same."

He is quiet and she thinks he is going to stay that way—hopes he is going to stay that way—until she hears him shifting.

"Pull over," he says, his voice quiet and unaccusing, "You've been staring at the damn desert too long. Stop now and we can sleep; I'll drive tomorrow."

They both know her anger is unwarranted but it is _there_ regardless, and she thinks she'd sooner drive into despondency than do what he suggests. She feels her hands tighten around the wheel, knuckles whitening.

She isn't even sure if it is _him_ she's so upset with.

"Do you still not _trust_ me? Because I have immensely misjudged you if that is the case," she finally continues, as if he hasn't spoken—not even on purpose—just because she is too deep into her own mind to consider that she hasn't replied.

"Listen, I didn't think it was importan—"

"Do you think I would have wasted my breath asking if I didn't think it was important?"

This time he keeps going as if she has not interrupted his words, tone rising huskily with every breath as the red in his ears floods into his cheeks—angrier now than embarrassed.

" _Important_ to discuss the relationship with my parents that I singlehandedly turned shitty when you are sitting next to me uncomplaining _without any_ , Skye."

She falls silent and it _isn't_ him she's mad at, she realizes with another sharp tug at her heart.

She's mad that whether or not his parents are in his life matters to her because _he matters to her._ The idea in theory seems harmless to her, but actually feeling it, feeling the similar anxious tugging at her heart in the places still sore from being torn at so many times before—it proves to be more than she can handle.

She is angry that she is doing it all over again.

"Pull over Skye," he says again, voice strained, "You're too tired to control your powers if you get any angrier. Believe me, I've burned things down with that winning mix of sleep deprivation and extreme frustration."

This time she does as he asks, pulling sharply at the wheel and pushing them into park all in one smooth movement—but she doesn't look back at him this time.

Being an orphan is one thing, she thinks, when you've always been one. Loss, however—it is something fresh and new that _stings_.

She can't decide whether his sensitivity to her fills the pit of her stomach with anger or guilt, and she doesn't stay in the car long enough to let it pan out—slipping her shaky legs to the desert sand and slamming the door hard behind her.

He lets her steam a while—pace back and forth, rest her forehead on the hot metal of the side of the van—till finally she sinks to the ground, leaning back against one of the wheels, and she hears his door open and feels the van rock when he shuts it behind him.

She knows what she is going to say before he comes around the back, words poised on the tip of her tongue—and when his eyes meet hers it is all the cue she needs for them to tumble out.

"I don't want you to _pity_ me."

When she looks up at him and allows his expression to fill her gaze, it isn't pity she finds at all—it is quiet resignation.

"Anyone who pities you, Skye, deserves the wrath that follows." A smile flickers dryly across his lips and he takes another step nearer to her, lowering a hand towards her. "You win. But I'm not doing story time on the ground in the middle of the desert—I'm not particularly fond of imagining what else is crawling around down there. We can set up for the night in the trunk, at least for tonight."

She is still staring at the hand he's offered her, unmoving.

"If you don't want to tell me—"

"I do. I've said it before—I'm not a fan of being on your bad side," he wiggles his fingers a bit, giving her another small, far more genuine smile. "We're gonna be stuck in this van together a while. We might as well know each other's deepest darkest secrets."

He wiggles his eyebrows and Skye can't bite back her smile at that, finally reaching up and allowing him to tangle his tingling fingers into hers.

"I don't know a lot but I am pretty certain you have no dark secrets, Lincoln," she smirks as he tugs her to her feet. She reaches to brush the sand from her behind with her free hand, eyes glued to where his smile wavers at her words.

He is quiet and she squeezes where their fingers are still entwined and tingling between them, jolting him out of the odd daze she seems to have put him in.

He drops her hand sharply.

"Everyone has a dark secret," he answers, smile going hollow. "Don't ever let someone tell you otherwise."

She rubs the still-tingling fingers together behind her back, wiggling her eyebrows.

"I'm intrigued. Do you wear skirts sometimes?"

He laughs fully then, ducking his head and rubbing at the bridge of his nose.

"It's concerning," he informs her, peering at her through his lashes, "That I say _dark_ and you think skirts."

"Skirts are devil's spawn Lincoln I swear to God, don't you dare laugh at me."

She's only being half-serious but it is a relief to make him laugh, to know he isn't still upset. It makes the heaviness inside her go a bit lighter whenever he smiles and his eyes are on her.

"I'll take it you had a bad experience?" He prompts with a raise of a brow.

"I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours," she responds easily, "that's how we do this thing, isn't it?"

There isn't as much space in the back of the van as either of them might have imagined, and Skye entertains the idea that when it was crushed they couldn't actually pop it back out to it's former glory. They set up the sleeping bags Fitz had retrieved for them before they left (luckily that actually did make it into the van in spite of the third spike in the rock-readings that week causing a distraction of the biggest variety)—they just fit alongside each other, and while they shoot each other looks neither bothers to state out loud the elephant in the room. Instead they settle facing each other, backs against their respective sides of the van and feet settled at the other's side.

(It is almost beyond her control to resist the temptation of tickling the feet that are so in her reach—but the bit of her nagging and concern about him reminds her that if she distracts them, he'll avoid ever giving her answers.

Instead, she grins).

"So, I made up the skirt thing. I told you mine. Your turn."

She thinks he should retire the practice of glaring at her because it only ever fades into a shake of his head and a smile.

"You are unbelievable."

"Tell me about your parents or I will have no motivation not to tickle you."

He nudges her playfully with the foot at her side which in no way further inspires her to keep her hands to herself, but somehow she manages—watching silently as his smile fades and she can practically see him drift into the past.

"I told you I had a rough time before Gordon picked me up. Before the Afterlife."

She nods, unwilling to interrupt when he has finally opened up.

He is quiet a beat longer, and she is scared for a moment he's decided not to tell her after all. Then he continues.

"I was in medical school then, too," a dry laugh, "Pre-med, but still—after the same goal. My parents were helping me pay. I had some scholarship," another laugh, softer this time, "I have never been particularly smart by any means. Obviously… because I did some shit at a party. Thought, you know, one time wouldn't hurt. I'd just have some fun."

Skye remains silent, watching his expression that is clearly somewhere else. He's looking at her feet, playing with a string sticking off of the sleeping bag under him.

"And I could have stopped, but I guess I thought I was being cool. So, I got hooked, I dropped out and wouldn't let my parents do anything to help me, no matter how hard they tried to. Made them watch their kid destroy his life in front of their eyes."

His voice scratches the more he speaks and Skye stares at where he still twirls the string between his long fingers, repeating the same pattern again and again. She can't keep watching his expression fall.

"I lived in my car until Gordon came and got me one day. I guess I must've just thought he was a hallucination or something, because the power and crap—I never questioned it. Until I got there, of course, and I had to drop everything cold turkey," his head moves out of the corner of her eye, and she glances back at him to see a grimace has painted across his lips, "Hard to get a supplier when you don't even know where you are. It's why they brought me there. Makes me feel like an absolute ass to say it, especially to you," a soft chuckle, "but going clean—it was the hardest thing I ever had to do. Hurt worse than terrigenesis ever did."

"I thought you like, burned alive when you went through terrigenesis?"

She can't hold back the question, and her fingers brush hesitantly over her lips once it slips past.

His eyes meet hers and she can see his contemplation, before he nods once, slowly.

"Don't get me wrong, changing—that was something else. It was a weird sort of high, you know?"

She does know, remembers how the pain had surged through her veins and somehow made her feel like she could handle anything in the world—made her feel invincible—and she nods.

"I almost burned down the place, when I first changed. I thought Gordon and Jiaying had screwed up remarkably by choosing me, when I realized how the power made me feel. I had no control, not after I was clean for so long. I was…" he pauses and swallows hard against the hoarseness of his tone and she tries to ignore the way his eyes glisten, "I was so _angry_ at them. It felt like they were testing me and I didn't think I could handle it."

She thinks they may have been after all, but this time manages to keep her mouth shut.

"But I got myself under control again. It was years, between then and the last time I'd brushed off my parents. It took… an understandably extended period of time before they'd speak to me again. I'm still making it up to them. The whole name situation didn't make it better. They… felt like I was separating myself from them, instead of me."

She looks up, brow furrowing.

"Name thing?"

When his eyes meet hers, they are wide and quiet and he chews at his cheek in contemplation— the rotating of his fingers momentarily halted.

"When I came to the Afterlife," he reiterates slowly, clearly _there_ in the misty reminiscence in his eyes, "Gordon, he had some choice words to say to me about wasting my potential."

When he laughs softly this time, it's real.

"He said that bringing me there, he was giving me a second chance that no one else could offer. That if I wanted to be someone else, to change who I was, that the Afterlife was my one and only option, and… it hit home. The next time someone asked my name I didn't want to be the drop-out on the street who alienated his parents and destroyed his life. I wanted that new beginning. Lincoln, it was the first name that came to mind. I had a granddad, Lincoln—my parents used to talk about him all the time. He seemed like a good person to be. So… Lincoln."

She scoffs, because it's the only thing she can think to do.

"And you make fun of me coming up with Skye when I was an actual child, _Honest Abe_."

He actually smiles at her, poking her big toe without dropping her gaze.

"At least I named myself after family. You named yourself after the big openness above you and didn't even spell it right."

"I was a gift to _earth_."

He rolls his eyes, but his smile doesn't falter. After a moment, though, he seems to fade out of it, attention again dropping to that stray thread.

She drops a hand to the jeans over his ankle almost unconsciously, giving what she hopes translates as a reassuring squeeze.

"Your parents will forgive you."

"They will," he agrees, slowly nodding once and returning her gaze. He still doesn't look entirely settled.

"You have to forgive yourself, too."

He is quiet, but this time doesn't shy from her gaze.

" _That_ one will be a little harder."

"I know."

(They fall asleep in the cramped van at each other's sides, and for the second time in as many days Skye manages to sleep through the night without waking up grasping at life).

xxx

"Did Coulson not consider the cost efficiency of giving us an _electric_ car?"

It is the third time they've stopped for gas already. She's in the passenger side now—driving duties not surviving the night—feet on the dash as she watches Lincoln shoot her a look from where he pumps the gas, also, entirely fairly, for the third time.

"How hard do you have to focus not to explode us?" She adds with a smirk, mainly because there isn't much entertainment that beats seeing how red she can get his ears to go.

They do just that, and he takes a steady breath in, eyes slowly lifting back to hers.

"Particularly hard when you're nagging and make exploding us an attractive option."

She smiles wider, looking back out in front of her at the stretching desert they have yet to escape while Lincoln finishes paying for the tank and returns to the car.

It isn't bad, not really. They agreed to take the driving in turns after last night, allowing time for each to sleep and recuperate and not attack the other unbidden. She's studied the registry papers back to front and used a program on the laptop she'd fished from her bag in the trunk (that is now sliding around somewhere on the floor where her feet should be) to create the most efficient recruiting route possible. What had seemed from the start to be a remarkably large project they'd broken down and compartmentalized and made manageable.

It'd been Lincoln's idea to go for what they are now calling the 'caterpillars' (her idea) of the list—the ones whose powers are most likely still to be kept secret from the people around them. Lincoln has even surprised her by pulling Afterlife files from somewhere in his backpack, ones she recognizes lines and lines of names on from their clean-up. They are a register of sorts in their own right; of every Inhuman with the gene that has or hasn't changed—along with their children. Scooping up still young Inhumans whose powers may be newly activated from the fish oil catastrophe, he reasons, is a double edged sword—their powers are still secret, and he can help them transition without hurting anyone.

(Skye definitely does not smile quietly to herself at this new level of commitment to their project).

Their top priority from the start has been their discretion and protecting the identities of their recruits—he is right that going out for the ones who have successfully kept their powers a secret are the ones they'll best be able to continue to keep a secret. Not only did the conclusion shorten their list considerably—it put their endgame far closer in reach.

When Lincoln turns the key and the engine starts buzzing, however, Skye is only reminded of just how _far_ their first stop still is.

She lets her discontentment be known with a long, loud groan—that Lincoln admirably ignores as he pulls from the gas station—the first civilization they've seen for miles.

"We have _got_ to be nearly out," she grumbles after a second, louder groan goes similarly unnoticed.

He glances sideways at her, light shining mischievously in his eyes.

"It is ironic that you insist on being an anti-social car-hermit and still expect me to inform you whether any of the people you are car-hermitting to avoid said anything about a town."

They've been passing more cars lately and his eyes are back to the road before he finishes, flitting back to catch her expression as he does. She sticks out her tongue, and he chokes back laughter.

"It's not _ironic_ , it's _opportunistic_ ," she responds with a smirk, "I may be a dropout but I know when you find a guy who'll pump your gas for you, you let the guy pump your gas for you."

He glances sideways at her again, rolling his eyes.

"Are you aware of the connotation of the word 'let,' Skye? Because there has been no 'letting.' Forcing, maybe. Threatening. Knife to my throa—"

"Okay, okay," she interrupts, turning her head to look out the window so he can't see her smirk, "When you find a guy you can manipulate into doing your will, manipulate the hell out of him. Better?"

He chuckles.

"Much."

They drive silently for a while—arguably the most annoying aspect of being in the middle of nowhere is the lack of any radio signal at all. Skye had messed with the signal for hours that morning, eventually conceding angrily to a defeat. So when out of nowhere the sudden sound of static interrupts the quiet, it really isn't Skye's fault that her excitement makes her jump, snatching at Lincoln's upper arm excitedly. He swerves, startled by her sudden movements—very nearly driving them straight off of the road.

"Holy _shit_ ," he growls as he sharply pulls back into their lane, muscles tense beneath her hands, "What the _hell_ , Skye!?"

She isn't particularly sorry, but she has the decency to try to look contrite.

"Okay, sorry for making you almost kill us," he glares at her, and she bites back a smile hard, "however; music."

The static has drifted out again, and she feels her suddenly heightened spirits drop.

"Oh."

She belatedly releases his arm with a small frown, but doesn't miss his slight sigh as he watches her movements before looking back out at the road.

"Twenty minutes," he finally says, "at least according to the ancient artifact running that last station. But he probably belonged in a museum, along with every snack item on his shelves, so don't get too excited. And _God_ , I've made a terrible mistake and gotten sort of attached to the whole life thing. At least give me some damn warning next time you're going to try to take it away."

They hit the first bit of land that looks remotely different from what they've been driving on for the past 24 hours in seventeen minutes, according to the clock on the dash, and the radio starts up immediately when they do. It is quiet and mostly drowned in static but Skye turns it up anyway, earning an eye roll from Lincoln.

When she reaches for the GPS she'd disposed of annoyed at her feet—amid similarly unhelpful wrappers, a couple blankets and her laptop—she starts it up, and is thrilled yet again when it beeps a location back at her.

(She refrains from grabbing at Lincoln this time).

"We're out!"

"And still among the living, obviously the real miracle.'

She ignores him, bending over herself to dig again through the trash at her feet to find her laptop and the map they've programmed on it. When she finally manages to retrieve it, the screen opens to the first girl on their checklist.

"Who's up?" Lincoln asks, and there is a freshness to his voice that tells Skye he is just as relieved as she is to have escaped the desert.

"Layla Miller."

An unsuspecting little girl with two blonde pigtails smiles up at her from her screen. A tug of something like guilt burns in her stomach and she clicks swiftly past the photo, pulling up the address and entering it quickly into the GPS instead. "Oh God, we're only 30 minutes out. This day is only getting better."

xxx

It is a little red barn house that has to still be separated from any real town for miles that they finally turn towards. She double-checks the GPS at least three times as Lincoln pulls slowly down the crunching gravel road towards it, glancing sideways at her with his own silent questioning of the location.

"Well, it says this is it," she mutters out loud, for both of them.

It isn't the house or the distance, she thinks—but something is making her stomach turn nervously. She isn't the only one, either.

"Is her gift on file?" Lincoln asks. He's pulled into park in front of the stretching yard that they've finally reached, but hasn't taken the keys from the ignition.

Skye shakes her head. She'd already had the thought, searching through the registry and the Afterlife files for anything she can find. "She's only in the registry, no sign of her in your census. She hasn't even got biological parents on file."

He hesitantly turns the keys, and the engine grumbles tiredly to silence—a sound Skye feels like she hasn't heard in years.

"I guess we go and find out." He mutters.

"I guess we do."

There is no path to the door—just an extensive lawn full of grass and weeds that don't look like they've seen a mower, ever. The uneasiness in her stomach grows as they get close enough to see the red paint peeling and curling off the rotted wood that panels the house. It has been a while, but she suddenly can hear Lincoln's molecules spark into an anxious buzz beside her.

She moves nearer to him as they approach the door, and when they stop they glance at each other in the same moment, clearly daring the other to do the knocking.

They are being ridiculous—she knows they are. But they stand silently in front of the door anyway, staring at each other—till finally Lincoln groans and takes the smallest of steps closer to it, raising a fist to the chipping wood.

It swings open with a creak before he's managed another move, and they both jump when the same little girl from her photo, right down to the pigtails, steps into the doorway.

She looks older now, maybe 15, but her eyes have the same somber darkness.

"I can't join." She answers, and it takes Skye a belated moment to realize they haven't said _anything_ to the girl. She opens her mouth.

Lincoln moves faster.

"We haven't—"

"You shouldn't be here. Your team, it's important, but you need to leave now or that _will_ be threatened."

Skye is shocked, staring in awe at the little girl with wide eyes that talks like she's already lived to 79.

"You're smart, Daisy; figure it out."

"How did you—" She makes it halfway through her question before realizing the girl has _already answered it_.

"I'd join. I would. But it's not what I am meant to do, and you both need to leave."

Skye looks sideways at Lincoln who is watching the girl in awe, clearly putting things slowly together at the same pace she is–clearly too slow for the girl.

"You've got—"

"Premonition," she answers him impatiently, stepping further out the door, "So it is absolutely _remarkable_ that neither of you are taking my warnings seriously."

The door opens wider behind her as she steps forward, and Skye catches a flicker of movement in the darkness behind her that definitely should not be there.

"Lincoln," she mutters, glancing again at him. His eyes are narrowing at the girl's words. "Maybe we should—"

"Definitely you should," the girl interrupts in the sharp, to the point way Skye is beginning to associate her with. "I've answered all your questions. _Leave_."

Her voice takes a more urgent turn and it seems to snap Lincoln into motion, taking two steps back and looking sideways to meet the concern Skye is sure is written in her expression. She glances again into the darkness behind the girl, wondering if running from whatever trouble she's in is actually _right_ , regardless of her warnings.

She stops moving and swallows hard, feeling fairly certain she'll regret it.

"You're in danger."

The temporary relief leaking into the girl's expression snaps swiftly away, and she tugs sharply at a pigtail, eyes going fiery and frustrated.

"No— _you are_."

Lincoln has caught onto Skye's concern practically faster than she has, and she feels his molecules speeding quicker as he stops at her side.

"Layla, right?" He says, and a new desperation is coming to her eyes. Her body language is getting tense, and Skye doesn't miss when she glances anxiously behind her.

"Who else is here, Layla?"

Skye takes an ambitious full step forward, squinting hard into the shadows of the house behind her.

"You should have left," is her defeated response.

All at once the darkness moves and a hand reaches to settle on the girl—Layla's—shoulder, and she flinches sharply away unseeingly out of its reach just before it does. A man moves into the light, letting his hand fall instead to his side.

Her heart plummets.

"What a surprise," Ward smiles brightly and the churning in Skye's stomach is threatening to bubble over. "Who _ever_ could have seen this coming?"


	4. Chapter 4

Skye goes to the defensive almost unconsciously, Bobbi's bruised and bloodied return to the Playground sinking harshly into the back of her mind. Her body screams danger and she feels her muscles tensing unbidden, molecules buzzing frantically against her skin.

It has been so long since she has last lost control that she nearly doesn't recognize that the massive presence violently blocking all her senses are the clinging molecules of the ground beneath their feet.

"Skye—"

Mentally, she knows Lincoln's hand has reached instinctively to her, clutching at her upper arm—but physically, there's nothing. It's like when she stands too long and her feet go numb and it almost feels like she is a part of the ground stretching beneath her—only in this scenario she _is._

Ward hasn't moved from his position but Layla steps cautiously back—a movement neither Lincoln nor Skye can possibly miss.

"You need to calm down," Lincoln says. His voice is firm and steady, but his eyes twitch nervously between her and the fear the girl is exhibiting. He has only given Ward the slightest glance, but it wasn't wariness of him he had reacted to when Skye's heart plummeted and she shifted anxiously away—it was her movements that prompted him to move subconsciously closer to her.

"I'm interested in your full _potential_ , Skye," Ward says, moving forward in spite of Layla's anxious movements back. His eyes have only drifted from her to take in Lincoln for a moment, and he seems unphased by the still soft vibrations of the earth beneath his feet, aside from the slightest intrigued glance down towards it.

Layla takes two more steps back, and slips silently away into the darkness of the house—and Ward continues his advance forward.

The world around them shakes faster, and the creaky old farmhouse lets out the angry screech of thousands of planks of ancient wood being urged from the positions they've held for hundreds of years.

"You tried to kill Bobbi," she finally hisses, loud rumbling backing her every syllable. "Coulson was going to give you a chance. He was going to give you another opportunity to live a life unmanipulated and you and Kara betrayed all of us and tried to _kill her._ "

His smile is bright and unsettling but her words have the effect she hopes—he stops moving.

She breathes in deeply, trying to focus on Lincoln's hand on her arm, willing the turmoil inside her to settle.

It doesn't.

"Bobbi betrayed Kara. And Coulson, for that matter. We just were carrying out the fate she deserved."

Lincoln squeezes her arm harder, and she knows she has to be hurting him—she has absolutely no control over what her powers are affecting. But his expression doesn't show it— his eyes trained on her wide and full of concern.

"Whatever _this_ is, it is not worth losing control over," he hisses, tone urgent and begging, "Skye, you will _regret it."_

She feels another shiver of anger rage through her and somehow, he only grips on to her tighter as the ground shakes and the house cries out again.

When Ward begins to advance forward again Lincoln's eyes are still trained on hers, reading their movements with apt attention.

The vibrations are getting harsher and the more Skye attempts to internalize it, the more her molecules protest and her bones ache—sending her further and further out of control.

She forces a particularly violent quiver through her veins and nearly cries out when the pain courses through her.

She can't control it and no, she isn't scared of Ward—but her power has her _terrified_.

And then Lincoln changes his tactic. He releases her arm, taking his own step towards Ward and raising his hands all in one swift movement. She hears the electricity crackling before she catches a glimpse of the sparks over his shoulder.

"If she doesn't calm down, someone is going to get hurt," he tells him with a fierce defiance she didn't know Lincoln possessed, sparks flying.

She's seen him use his power before, but never in this capacity. Little sparks and shocks and jolts here and there—even in the battle with the Afterlife he'd underplayed himself, with no intention of hurting anyone. She can't even see fully now, with his back turned to her—but the sparks glowing around his arms and flickering into her view are like slithering white flames, whipping around and seeking out a target.

"Thunder and lightning. How sweet." Ward mocks—but an odd uneasiness has settled in the back of his eyes as he watches the sparks ignite around Lincoln, gaze flicking up and down him almost indecipherably.

He takes another step and Lincoln jerks a hand forward threateningly.

Skye is squeezing her fists tight together, muscles tense as she continues to fight the shaking. It has been stopped, no longer intensifying since Lincoln moved into the line of fire—but every time it begins to settle Ward speaks again and sets her nerves racing out of control.

But now he stops, still watching Lincoln with that look of mild uneasiness that _isn't_ fear but something not altogether different from it.

"Chill, fire boy. I'm not here to hurt anyone," he says in an uneasy tone, holding up his hands in mock surrender.

Skye is dubious, but the aching calms, if only slightly.

"Then why _are_ you here?" Lincoln asks without amusement, still sparking.

He smiles, and Skye purses her lips in disgust, taking another slow breath and feeling the shaking beneath her feet begin to settle.

"Same reason as you, I imagine. Recruiting a premonitionist…" He lets out a low whistle, "what a prize."

Lincoln's power crackles harsher at the words, and Ward takes a half step back.

"Somehow I have trouble believing 'recruit' is the word to describe what you intended to do to get her to join whatever twisted team you are creating," Skye hisses through clenched teeth.

"Lucky for me," he snaps back, ignoring her words, "you two arrived just in time to screw up all my work. She's long gone. Now neither of us get her."

Neither Skye nor Lincoln reply and the three stand in awkward quiet, listening to the ground still softly rumbling and static crackling.

"Go back in the house," Lincoln finally says in that same authoritative tone from earlier. "Stand in the doorway and don't _leave_ the doorway until we are gone. Don't try any shit. I get the impression you like yourself too much to want a stray spark to send the place up in flames."

Ward looks over his shoulder, surely noticing now if he hadn't already the dry, brittle wood composing the farmhouse.

The white electricity flaming in Lincoln's hands crackles threateningly, and Ward looks back at him with a vague amusement that makes Skye feel ill. She's finally contained the shaking of the ground but her body is still quivering with the force of the outburst.

She feels safe behind Lincoln.

Ward slowly moves backwards, stepping back into the doorway still displaying the chilling smile. Lincoln doesn't take his eyes off of him till he is settled there, then only steals a brief glance over his shoulder at Skye.

"Alright?"

She nods, curling her shaking arms tightly around her. She thinks she should be embarrassed about her outburst—and probably will be later—but now, she is filled with relief.

She watches Ward in the rearview till he disappears as she speeds back down the gravel to the street.

Xxx

There is an inn in the next town that they check into, and despite its small size they earn many uneasy stares for their disheveled states. Lincoln's shirt is charred and his hair more sloppy even than usual—Skye's arms bruised and legs still shaking.

They didn't speak at all in the van, spirits low and energy lower—neither willing to bring up something that would turn the silence from exhausted to tense with no escape available. When they get to the room she only speaks to offer he take the shower first, which he accepts with a wordless, dazed nod.

When she hears the shower flip on, she grabs her bag and drops it on the bed, digging beneath the underwear and wires to find her phone—dialing the number by heart.

It rings three times.

"Skye?"

"Fitz." Her voice comes out breathily and it feels like she's been holding it in for a while.

She hears the clicking of keys in the background and imagines her friend in the safety of the lab on base, working away like usual.

She tries to imagine Jemma beside him, and her heart thuds.

"D' you need the Director?"

It's her turn to stay silent, staring at the dizzily over-flowered wallpaper, sifting through the overlapping designs till she finds a daisy.

"No. I just… wanted to check in with you."

He makes an indecipherable noise and the clicking grows heavier a moment before stopping.

"I still 'm getting unnatural readin's from the rock," he says, "'s just hard to work ou' why. 's all alien, couldn' tell if there was any biological base 'n it at all."

Silence for a moment.

"'s Jemma's specialty, really. She'd have it figured ou' by now."

Skye doesn't know how to respond and Fitz doesn't seem to know how to continue.

"'s Lincoln there?"

His voice has a hopeful edge—the two had become unlikely friends in spite of Fitz's new perpetual grumpiness and Lincoln's time being split with the Afterlife. It was something the rest of the team had been remarkably relieved to watch develop.

"We just found our first inn," she says with a dry laugh, "he's showering. Living in a van is gross. I would know."

"Ah."

The clicking has begun again, faster, and Skye imagines he's set the phone on speaker on the shelf beside his ridiculous TARDIS statue so he can focus on whatever his newest idea to crack the rock mystery is.

If she closes her eyes and just listens, she feels like she's back. They sit in amicable silence for a few minutes, listening to the quiet noises at either end of the line.

"I lost control again."

The words fall past her lips before she can stop them, and Fitz's end goes silent.

She immediately thinks she should regret telling him, but for some reason sharing it with him makes the frustration lessen, if only slightly.

"I thou' Lincoln was meant t' help so you didn'?"

She can tell he is carefully controlling his voice, trying not to show his concern.

The shower suddenly goes silent and Skye bites her lip.

"I have to go," she says. "My turn to shower, and I don't intend to miss my shot." She laughs but doesn't think the dryness if it fools Fitz.

She moves to hang up, but then she hears him again.

"Jus' stay safe, yeah? Everyone here… we need y' back 'n one piece."

She lifts the phone back to her ear slowly, listening again to the quiet lab on the other end.

"Nothing is going to happen to me," she assures him, thinking of the fiery flames that could barely be called electricity that Lincoln had produced earlier. "I promise."

She believes it.

Xxx

She showers until the water runs cold, knowing it is the only thing standing between her and Lincoln and the inevitable. She'd screwed up and it had nearly cost them both—she was hardly fit to be in the field and now it was clear to both of them. She has yet to experience Lincoln being disappointed in her but the anxiety churning in the pit of her stomach assures her she is not going to like it at all.

She reasons with herself as the cold water soaks through her hair and down her body—that it was Ward, that it was an unforeseeable condition that she could not have _possibly_ controlled.

But it still stands that she _lost_ _control_.

Regardless, she cannot stay in the bathroom forever.

She finishes washing the rest of her hair and has to use the rest of the tiny bottle of shampoo provided, even if it hardly seems touched by Lincoln. She still doesn't feel clean but she flips the faucet off anyway, reaching for the towel she'd hung nearby—suddenly in a rush to dress and escape the tiny bathroom.

The room isn't large, either. There is a bed with a nightstand and a couch that pulls out (that Lincoln has already managed to claim with his typical gentlemanly grace). The only other thing in the room is a rickety old desk near the door—and it is what he is standing at when she comes out of the bathroom, with what appears to be all of the files they've brought along spread sloppily in front of him.

She has never known Lincoln to be sloppy.

He looks up when he hears the door and shocks Skye by smiling softly when their eyes meet.

"Turns out I'm not the only one with some crap in my past, huh?"

She smiles weakly and manages a slight shrug. He watches the movements closely, something she is becoming accustomed to, before speaking gently.

"Your powers are still new to you, Skye. It hasn't even been a month—you're gonna have incidents. It's no good to beat yourself up over them."

She stays quiet, running a hand through her wet and tangled hair and dragging it over one shoulder. He's still watching her, and when she doesn't answer he moves a step from the table, nearer to her.

"I've transitioned a _lot_ of people. No one is ever in the field this quickly, much less under control. No one was hurt, and Layla wasn't going to join us no matter what actually happened. You shouldn't feel bad—you ended up getting it under control and everything was okay."

His gentle tone and careful wide eyes only make her feel worse, running her hand through her hair again—getting frustrated when her fingers get tangled and letting out an angry spurt of breath.

"How can you just stand there and say it was _okay_?" She snaps with an angry shake of her head. "Lincoln— _I was out of control_. Anything could have happened, and it was just _luck_ that I calmed down. I could have hurt someone; I could have hurt _you._ It was not _okay_."

Her frustration in herself and his utter refusal to join her in the feeling is overwhelming, and she feels the familiar uncomfortable tinge beginning to numb her senses starting in her fingertips. She squeezes her eyes shut hard, fighting against it.

She doesn't hear him move towards her but suddenly his hand is on her shoulder, squeezing softly.

She jerks away.

"Don't _touch_ me," she hisses, eyes still pressed firmly shut. "I told you, _I don't have control_."

He lets out a soft breath but doesn't reach out again.

"Just listen, Skye. _Please_. Let me help you have control."

Her fingers are shaking and she takes a deep breath, focusing on his voice.

"Don't think about it," he says, voice still steady. "Focus on something else. If you think about it, you're giving it the energy to gain power."

She isn't sure how the hell she is meant to _not_ think about the immense tingling overcoming her but she tries, tuning herself instead to the rough timbre of his voice and the cool drip of water from her still-wet hair soaking her spine.

She almost doesn't notice when he touches her shoulder again.

 _Almost_.

This time, however, she doesn't pull away.

"Good," he praises in the same soft, even tone. The tingling is receding, slowly, and she opens her eyes gingerly to find his, wide and watching. The corner of his lip twitches slightly upwards. "See—you're doing fine."

She squeezes her fists at her side, but finds herself unable to tear her eyes from his.

"Your definition of 'fine' _concerns_ me," she tells him with sarcastic slowness, and he laughs, ducking his head and breaking whatever connection was between them—hand dropping from her shoulder.

There are still remnants of the tense stare in the air, however, and Skye forces a smile across her face.

"So, I totally saw a pool that only looked half sketchy downstairs. How about a swim?"

He shakes his head, and she could swear a splash of red color his cheeks. She raises an eyebrow.

"What? It wasn't _that_ bad."

It actually was, but she gets the sense the condition of the pool is not his motivator—and now she's curious.

"Somehow I doubt that," he tells her with a look of dubious amusement, "however, even if it was of Olympic standards I would not be joining you."

She grabs at her heart dramatically, smirking.

"That cuts deep, sparky," she tells him, watching as he rolls his eyes before continuing, "What, does the water not agree with your circuits or something?"

He gives her a look of contempt that only makes her smirk harder.

"I'd rather avoid bodies of water bigger that I am, thanks."

It takes all Skye has to bite at her lips to fight the immense bubble of laughter that rises in her throat.

"Oh my _God_ , you're afraid of water," she says, probably entirely too gleefully.

He looks entirely unamused, and she has enough decency to feel slightly bad.

"I'm sorry," she amends, still smirking, and his glare hardens, "no, really—" she bites hard at the corners of her smile to demonstrate, and finally his glare breaks into a heavy roll of his eyes.

"Try to avoid drowning," he tells her, turning back towards the desk, "I refuse to save you if you do."

She watches him return to the piles of messy files, working to soften her still wide, amused smile before speaking.

"What are you doing? I'd rather help you instead."


	5. Chapter 5

Hey guys! As you may have caught on to seeing Layla Miller in the last couple of chapters, while I'm trying to stay fairly true to AOS canon I also am including a bit of Secret Warriors-lore-I hope that's alright! if you're still reading and enjoying, for sure let me know! I'm trying to decide how much more of this I want to write and it'd be helpful to know what sort of audience I still have :) Thanks for reading!

* * *

She wakes the next day to an aching body and light just beginning to filter through the ratty inn curtains. She had flipped the sheets off of her at some point in the night; the material, though light, irritating her bruised arms—and now sprawled on top of the sheets she shivers, feeling goosebumps risen all over her skin.

Her head is fuzzy and she doesn't want to get up, but her shivering body has other ideas and it intends to win the battle. She sits up slowly, fighting a groan as her joints protest with sharp little pains. She ignores them, pulling her legs close to her chest in an attempt to render a bit of heat before getting up.

It doesn't work, and the lump of blankets that cover Lincoln on the couch are unmoving, so Skye _tries_ to be silent as she hurriedly crosses the icy room to dig jeans and a jacket from her bag, rushing into the bathroom and shutting the door with a bit more force than she intends and cringing. She stays silent a moment, listening and hoping she hasn't woken him—and when she hears nothing lets out a soft sigh of relief.

She doesn't want any of her clothes to touch any part of the bathroom, which makes changing a challenge rivalling many of their smaller missions, but when she finally manages her icy skin lets out one final, relieved shiver.

She turns to reenter the room, to shove the clothes she's now holding back into her bag and start to clean up—but out of the corner of her eyes, her reflection catches her attention, and she turns slightly to view herself more fully.

Her hair is a complete disaster—air drying has never been kind to her and it is very clear. Her bangs are overgrown—she should have trimmed them before she left—and her curls are twisted and frizzed uncontrollably around her head and shoulders. She tangles her fingers into it, tugging to see what sort of damage control she can manage before giving up, her eyes drifting back to her bangs.

At least those, she can deal with.

She turns to the drawers, opening each with the hand not clinging to her clothes to find them stuffed entirely with washcloths that probably used to be white. She lets out a frustrated sigh and glares at herself in the mirror. But then another idea hits her and exits the bathroom as quietly as she can manage, glancing at Lincoln still asleep on the couch as she crosses the room and slips out the door.

It takes longer than she expects to find her way to the lobby—memories from last night a useless blur of way too many stairs and watching Lincoln's footsteps entirely too closely. But she does, eventually, find the stairs and the lobby—and is shocked to find someone is actually manning the desk.

The older woman looks vaguely familiar, and Skye suspects she is who checked them in last night—the warm if slightly uneasy smile she offers serving as the deciding proof. She seems to be knitting, Skye notices with no little amount of amusement, but as she slowly approaches she puts it down and warms up her smile.

"Good morning, darling," she smiles and the kindness of it radiates through all her wrinkles. Skye isn't sure if she imagines her eyes drifting to her hair or not, but she self-consciously runs a hand through nevertheless. "Sleep well, I trust?"

"Um, yeah," Skye answers, hoping her own smile comes across as more genuine than uncomfortable. She finally reaches the desk, and reaches a hand unconsciously to touch at a bit of wallpaper peeling off the edge. The woman watches, and she quickly forces her hand back to her side.

"Can I help you with anything?" She asks, voice still kind—but her eyes hover on her arms and Skye pulls them even closer, crossing them over her chest—suddenly very conscious of the bruises beneath the leather that had been very visible last night.

She can't even _begin_ to imagine what the woman is thinking.

"Scissors," she says quickly, and the woman's brow furrows. She takes a breath, "I, uh, haven't trimmed my bangs in probably months and I can't see approximately half of the world. If you had some scissors…"

The smile returns to the woman's face, and she nods.

"Of course, of course," she clucks cheerfully, turning her back to Skye to dig through the drawers behind her. She murmurs to herself as she searches, and a moment later turns back, shining scissors clutched in her hand. She sets them on the desk and looks to Skye expectantly as she reaches out to take them, eager to return to the room.

"I'll bring them back when I'm done," she promises, taking a step back, "Thanks, Mrs—"

 _Dammit._

The woman laughs, not at all unkindly.

"You were quite out of it last night, weren't you Miss Jones?"

Skye keeps her mouth shut—appreciating Lincoln for still having enough sense to register them under monikers at the tiny inn and resenting herself for not paying enough attention to actually _know_ them.

She forces an embarrassed smile across her lips.

"Me and tequila, man," she laughs dryly. "I love it, but boy does it hate me."

The woman's smile doesn't falter, and Skye is sure she's pleased to now have confirmation that she was drunk off her ass last night, even though she can't actually remember the last time she had a beer.

"Lucky you, to have that handsome husband to take care of you," her smile seems to grow wider, and Skye can only blink stupidly.

"Husband?"

The woman frowns, a small thing that Skye finds does not fit her face well at all.

"Oh, I'm sorry dear, I just assumed-"

Her mind flies as she smiles slowly, grasping for a story and officially becoming vaguely pissed at Lincoln for not mentioning the cover.

"Oh, no. No, yeah—" She scratches behind her neck, allowing the smile to soften as the idea forms in her mind, "We, uh, just got married—" she moves closer, lowering her voice conspiratorially, sure the woman will love a tidbit of gossip, "It's just—" she looks side to side, feigning a bit of innocent fear and leaning across the counter to whisper to the woman, "We eloped."

The woman's mouth forms a tiny "O" of shock, and Skye forces her brow to furrow with the concern their forbidden wedding fills her with.

"Can you keep a secret?" she asks slowly, widening her eyes.

The woman nods enthusiastically.

"My _husband_ ," she puts emphasis on the word, and the woman nods again, smaller this time, "was dumped by my sister 6 months ago," she watches the woman's eyes widen, and fights hard against the mischievous smile tugging at her lips, "he proposed to me a month ago, but _of course_ we couldn't tell our families."

The woman nods her agreement, eyes still wide.

Skye straightens back up, smiling appreciatively at the woman.

"I haven't told _anyone_ this, yet," she tells her honestly.

"Of course not," the woman agrees, watching Skye with a new sort of protectiveness that is almost too much for the tugging at her lips.

"I'd better get back," she adds after a moment of silence, gesturing with the scissors.

The woman nods, and Skye feels her eyes on her as she goes. She only lets herself smirk once she's headed up the stairs.

Xxx

"My sister found out about us, Lincoln. She called in tears before you woke up. You broke her _heart_."

Lincoln stares groggily at her through heavy eyelids, shoving the pillow she's thrown at his head to the ground with no deal of grace.

"What the _hell,_ Skye?" He grumbles, voice dry and cracking, reaching a hand to rub at his eyes then through his hair.

"She threatened to tell our parents," she continues dramatically, turning away from him to move toward the bathroom, allowing the smirk to reform across her lips. "The sweet lady that runs the inn—" she pauses, realizing she still doesn't know her name, but recovering quickly, "she's offered us her unwavering support. She says kids who elope _always_ come to her."

She hears the couch shift and creak as he sits up.

"Okay, what did I do?" He asks, voice still heavy, and her smile grows wider as she stops at the bathroom door, scissors still clutched in her hand.

"You broke up with my sister and married me five months later, asshole."

She glances over her shoulder, still smirking, in time to catch the exhausted groan that escapes his lips as he leans back against the couch, hard, staring at the ceiling.

"You're insufferable," he tells her, "and if you were paying any attention at all last night you would have been capable of feigning off the gossip mill today."

"But it's been a secret so long," she faux whispers, widening her eyes at him, "did you really expect me not to tell anyone?"

He is chucking his own pillow at her before she can blink but she catches sight just in time to slip behind the bathroom door, laughing when it hits the wood behind her.

"I would never marry you!" He assures her, voice muffled through the door.

"Too late!" she answers gleefully, enjoying the responding groan that follows.

xxx

She trims her bangs slowly in the practiced way she's developed over the months she's had them, biting her bottom lip in focus as she snips. It doesn't take long—but when she's finished she can't help her gaze from shifting to the wild hair haloing the rest of her head.

She runs her fingers through again, dragging it into a heavy ponytail behind her ears and staring at her reflection, thinking of the weeks to come on the road as she lets it go and it poofs annoyingly back up.

Absentmindedly, she snips at air with the scissors in her hand—and the thought suddenly hits her.

She lets out a long, slow, breath.

"What the hell," she reasons deflated with her reflection, which shrugs in sync with the words.

She looks back at the scissors.

Xxx

She has a particular talent of being impulsive and not thinking things through, and it has never been so apparent to her as when she stares at the hair she's collected carefully in one of the washcloths in the drawers.

She is not regretting cutting it off—her head is light and the air on her neck is a sensation she's not sure she has ever felt—but it has actually turned out much nicer than she's expected it to—which makes blindly cleaning up the back far more daunting than she can imagine.

Lincoln has been calling in sporadically, checking on her progress.

("I have a lot of hair to fix, chill!")

She isn't sure why she hasn't told him that she is actually cutting it _off._

Especially now that she's determined she really cannot finish the project on her own.

She can hear him pacing outside the door, anxious to get on the road again. Coulson had called for an update while she'd been working on her bangs, which Lincoln had given with great hesitance and palpable tension. She knew it was important to get moving again, to get to the caterpillars before Ward—and it is mostly that which makes her sigh, glaring at her reflection before reaching for the door-opening it just a crack to peer out at Lincoln.

He stops pacing, eyes falling on her.

"I need your help," she tells him begrudgingly, her voice smaller than she'd like.

He raises an eyebrow.

"With fixing your hair?"

She bites her lip, bracing herself as she lets the door fall open.

"Um, yeah."

His eyes widen as she comes into view, but not entirely with the shock she'd expected to fill his expression.

"Ta-da?" She smiles uneasily, shifting under the heaviness of his gaze which hasn't moved off of her.

"Wow," he murmurs, still unmoving.

She chews at her lip for a moment, then:

"I could reach the back, to cut it, but I'm pretty sure there is more than a large chance that would result in cutting my finger off," she talks quickly, his gaze back on hers, "So I was, uh, wondering—"

"Yeah," he answers, equally awkwardly, "Um, yeah. I can help. We definitely don't need you slicing any fingers," he laughs, "Especially since I'm pretty certain you're never letting me near you with a needle again."

She remembers all the needles sticking out of her in the Afterlife and shivers impulsively.

"No," she agrees with a laugh, watching as he holds out a hand. It takes a beat for her to realize he's reaching for the scissors still clutched in her hand, and she hurries to hold them out to him. "I, uh, had some towels out in the bathroom. So the hair doesn't go everywhere."

"Thoughtful," he notes with a slight teasing smile as she turns back into the bathroom, "you really are pals with the innkeeper now, huh?"

He follows her and she glares at him in the reflection. He sticks his tongue out at her, and she almost lets out a breath of relief, she's so glad the awkward air between them has dissipated.

"Transitioning doesn't generally involve me practicing my hair-cutting skills, so can we make an agreement before I even start that if I screw up you will take it out on me only through further horror stories about the asshole that broke up with your sister to marry you?"

She smirks, somehow not feeling the same worry he seems to be.

"My sister broke up with _you,_ " she clarifies, "you watched the 'Game of Thrones' episode that you guys DVRed _without her_."

He gasps sarcastically.

"Betrayal of the highest form."

"Obviously."

They fall quiet, smiling softly at each-others reflections, and the tense, awkward air begins to settle back into place.

"Alright," he says, snipping the scissors in the air beside him, "last chance to go ask your innkeeper friend to do this instead."

She shakes her head, still watching him behind her shoulder in the mirror.

"I trust you," she says, and she means it. She doesn't miss the ghost of a smile that flashes across his expression.

It seems like a good idea until his fingers are brushing gingerly along her scalp and his eyes are reflected focusing on her hair with a quiet concentration that makes shivers go down her spine. His brow is furrowed as he makes the first cut, and the next—and she can't take her eyes off of him, hardly even realizing she's staring. His touches are soft but purposeful and he moves only slightly faster as he gets the hang of the movements—and she thinks it's unconscious for him, too, when he finishes the job and hesitates as he pulls away from her.

"There."

She isn't sure whether or not she imagines the softness of his voice as his gaze meets hers in the mirror with a delicateness that shoots straight to her heart. She searches for something sarcastic or teasing to say, to break through the shift in the air, but ends up swallowing hard, coming up empty.

"Um, thank you."

The corner of his lips twitch slightly and she reaches to run her fingers through the hair herself, relieved at the lack of tangles. The hair is at its longest at her ears, where it just passes their ends—the rest shortened to an exaggerated pixie that is given just enough volume by the static still pulsing through it.

"Yeah," the corners of his lips twitch softly, "It, uh, looks real nice."

She glances at her hands, not sure the pounding of her heart can take looking at him again.

"We should probably get going. Get to the caterpillars before anyone else and… stuff."

The sharp change of topic throws him off guard, but she catches the movement of his nod out of the corner of her eye.

She takes it as all the answer she needs, slipping past him and out the bathroom door—finding his pillow still on the ground outside the door and her bag zipped neatly on the bed.

She can't avoid looking at him forever, though, and when they exit the room he pauses reaching in his pocket and pulling out the GPS.

"I went ahead and entered the next coordinates," he tells her in a lowered voice, and she doesn't miss how firmly his eyes are glued to the screen. "Should only be about 20 minutes out, I thought we could try to get in a few visits today. And hopefully not run into your friend."

She nods and his eyes finally raise to hers. She hates that this makes her heart pound.

"I just have to give back these scissors on the way out. Got your act ready, Mr. Jones?"

The sarcasm she intends to fill her tone falls more than a little flat, but he still indulges her with a smile.

"I think I can manage."


End file.
